Upon the Notes
by Spazztic Revenge
Summary: (Neighbors AU) It all started with a dance on a sun-soaked balcony. Or maybe it was with the harsh smack of a door to the face. Or maybe it started with the adventures of a panty-thieving cat. Or maybe with a drunken kiss tangled in blonde wig hair. Whenever it started, it doesn't look like it's ending anytime soon.


**A/N: My submission for the Victuri big bang 2017 on tumblr! I had so much fun working on this little Neighbors AU that it turned into something so much more than I'd intended.**

 **Cover image is by the lovely yt-anime-trash over on tumblr, my bang partner this year. Go check out the full version. It's wonderful.**

 **I own nothing. All referenced material and characters belong to their respective creators and copyrights.**

* * *

The first time Viktor sees him is a few weeks after Yuuri moves in.

The August sky burns with a gradient of orange and magenta hues, brilliant light glinting off the surrounding skyscrapers and refracting shards of colors through the air. Viktor's sitting out on the balcony, spine curved into the corner between wood slats as he stares down at the crisscross of people below. He sees through the lilac tinge of his bangs, hands graying as he pencils down a musical composition of the pulse of the city. Makkachin is curled by his feet, cozy-curly weight breathing snores into his toes.

The air is quiet with the height, but the waves of the chaos below surge up into his canopy as day breathes into night. The world fascinates Viktor, and he never tires of its unending melody as he focuses to capture it down into his notebook. His pencil scritch-scratches. His fingers tap out a tune into his thigh. He's working through a funk he hasn't known before, but there's a thrum building.

A violin shatters through his thoughts. Viktor's head jerks up as the sliding door to the next apartment over yields swirling footsteps. A young Asian man twirls out, a pitcher in one hand and his singing phone in the other. Viktor stares, watching through slats that shutter his form.

His neighbor is new, hasn't even been present for more than a month, and Viktor's yet to catch sight of him.

Until now.

This man, who literally dances into Viktor's world, holds him captive. His body is slender, but toned with muscles to allow grace and strength, noticeable even in the bed clothes that rumple his form. His eyes are bright beneath inky lashes, nose pert and lips inviting, such alluring features tucked beneath a toss of bangs and cut frames. He's gorgeous even as he's a blur of movement.

Viktor's gaze is a slave to the way that body moves as feet curl quiet arcs into the floor boards. The man hasn't noticed him, just keeps swaying, bending, unfurling. The space is small, but his moves go unhindered as his tight bounds accent the plucking of energized strings. Every step is a flawless note to the rhythm. Viktor hears more from those steps than the song on his phone.

Viktor can't believe that the man hasn't spilled the water that swishes dangerously. Can't believe he hasn't said something, screamed something. He wants to applaud as the music quiets and the plants drink the pitcher dry. His mouth salivates with a need to claim. He wants. A name. A love. A heart. But only breath clatters out of him.

And then he's gone. Hums his way back inside and Viktor doesn't think his life can be normal again.

* * *

"He swooped right down from the heavens above and I was just-" Viktor pops his lips, "gone."

Chris thinks he's exaggerating. He's always exaggerating. Going off about the click of a woman's heels. A man's syrupy laugh. But he means it. This time he _means_ it. He's in love and he doesn't know what to do about it. He hasn't felt this way in a long time. Probably never.

He despairs over the lack of a name. He doesn't know the shape his tongue should make, and his ears feel empty without the knowledge.

His neighbor, the dancer that stole his sanity, is almost never home. Viktor knows. He's knocked. And knocked. And almost pleadingly pounded until the old man from apartment 703 glared daggers at him and threatened him with police and a swift eviction. He's resigned himself to a wait that never ends.

But he wants a name. Something solid. An imprint for his mind to sink its teeth into.

He's a sap, an adorable sap, Chris tuts, but Chris lets him in on a little secret.

His name is Yuuri.

Yuuri.

 _Yuuri, Yuuri, Yuuri._

Viktor stretches the syllables out on his tongue, long and luxurious. He wraps himself up in its exotic flavor until he comes to a realization that jolts him from his lounged position on his couch. Chris knows him.

He doesn't know much, Yuuri's just a patron at the bar he tends, a casual acquaintance in the loose sense, but Viktor draws the knowledge out of him. He hears stories, flits of experiences that just make him whine for more. It's all secondhand. Even so, sweet, studious, drunk disaster Yuuri pieces together more to this dreamy being he's yet to meet.

Viktor chews on his work as he waits for the opportunity to come upon him. Bites his frustration, his longing, down into notes that crowd his apartment. It's the same haunting melody that he attempts to gouge out of his brain with a keyboard and a lute and a fucking spoon. Every instrument, every sound, pales in comparison to the real thing.

He wants.

* * *

When Viktor first meets him, he smashes a door into Yuuri's face.

Viktor's getting his mail in the lobby when he spots him. Yuuri is shuffling papers and textbooks in his arms as he exits a cab. He's _right there_ and Viktor almost drops his bills in his hurry to make it to him. He's a flurry of limbs, crawling through the rush hour of body traffic.

His speed propels him forward, hand pushing the door with more force than necessary. He pushes just as Yuuri begins to pull. He foresees the collision scant seconds before it happens. And then it happens.

Viktor feels the smack as it vibrates through the door and into his arm. Yuuri, beautiful, dream-stalker Yuuri, crumbles to the ground. His papers flutter with a whip of wind and his textbooks meet the sidewalk with little dignity. Fingers hold his nose as crimson streaks through. Viktor freezes, and then moves.

Yuuri doesn't look at him, too busy burning scarlet around a cupped nose, hissing curses beneath his breath. His glasses have landed beyond the safety of his reach and Viktor rescues them instantly. He returns them, glasses in one hand and a handkerchief in the other. The blood doesn't belong. Not on that face. Not on Yuuri.

Guilt grips him.

He's an idiot. A complete and utter airhead. Isn't that what Yakov calls him, when he misses his meetings because he spent all night flattering his muse, and when he's flattened himself out on Yakov's parlor room floor agonizing after she's left him, high and dry, a conniving vixen that sucked out all of the inspiration from his marrow and absconded with it at the peak of twilight.

Viktor spews out apologies like they're all he's certain of. Yuuri peels his right hand from his face to take the glasses, stutters out a thank you as he holds the cloth to his nose. The image will be attached to Viktor's mind for days. Along with the voice that clutches onto his brain, forgiving its trembly tenor.

Viktor's hands find purchase on narrow shoulders. It feels right to hold him, destined, though he keeps a polite distance. Scaring him away is not on his agenda today, despite this rough start. _Too late_ , Viktor thinks, as their eyes meet. He has a heartbeat to memorize Yuuri's physical being once more, gazes connecting. He starts to speak, his name, an introduction on his tongue, a hesitant invitation leaving his lips, but Yuuri scrambles away from him before a consonant can form.

Slips away. A last note that dies out before it can be caught.

Yuuri gathers his things and runs.

Viktor remains mesmerized.

* * *

Viktor's fingers burn beauty into pages, but he's lost when it comes to capturing the magnificence that is his neighbor. Yuuri is elusive, more so now than ever. He's convinced that Yuuri is hiding from him.

One day he waits. Waits until Yuuri comes home past three, drops the fork that was halfway to his mouth, runs over and knocks. He listens to the soft sink of footsteps as they arrive. His breath catches. His body hums with the surge of burgeoning emotions. But the door doesn't open. The steps, a whisper now, retreat.

Viktor feels the rejection like a honeybee sting. Only it kills him, his muse, and he mourns into a bottle at Chris' bar.

Maybe Yuuri's embarrassed. Maybe he hates him. Maybe he just hasn't felt the stirrings of fate that Viktor has.

No rationalization that Viktor tosses out eases him.

Chris offers to pave a path for him as he's summoning an Uber for a drink-heavy but still standing Viktor. Viktor rejects the idea. He'll find a way to Yuuri. Somehow.

Days pass, but he allows for space. Gets to know Yuuri through the mouth of his walls. He's home more often now, and Viktor indulges.

He never thought that the thin build to his apartment would ever feel like a blessing - J.J. and his girlfriend in the apartment above him are very active and vocal, arguments that burst out only to die into bed springs that shriek in a telling manner - but he gets to feel like a part of Yuuri's life. An outsider with a window of sound.

Yuuri's laugh chimes through. As does his music, genres clashing with the tides of moods. He can sometimes hear a routine. A successful land as Yuuri cries out a "Yatta!" A failure that ends in a thud or a crash. The washer spinning shakes his walls. The constant screaming of the fire alarm tells him that Yuuri needs a brush up on his culinary skills.

Chris finds it both charming and creepy that he composes a soundtrack of his little crush's home life. Chris stays the night sometimes, because his apartment is closer to the bar than Chris', a block rather than ten, and he realizes very quickly that Yuuri is a presence in Viktor's life that cannot be ignored.

"Oh my god, Viktor. His fire alarm is going off _again_. Either he seriously can't cook or his hotness keeps setting his place on fire."

Viktor shoves his smile into his pillow. He doesn't tell him that even that shrill sound is music on its own.

* * *

Yuuri's dancing on the balcony again and Viktor takes advantage.

The sunset silhouettes him and Viktor thinks that if he died with that image in his mind, he'd be the happiest man in heaven. Yuuri's singing along this time, turned away as he's tending to his flowers. Viktor props himself up on the banister, lazing his head on a knotted hand. Yuuri's only in a baggy T-shirt and boxers, uncaring and open and either showy or unknowledgeable of Viktor's presence. Either way, Viktor has so much more to work with. Those glorious _thighs_. Thick and steeled. He wonders what it feels like to be between them as they move and dip and shudder. As they prop Yuuri up with a force that defies gravity.

Yuuri's voice goes pitchy to match the song. It's unpleasantly shrill, but genuine. Viktor warms. He slowly lilts his voice out with Yuuri's, delights in the sound as the two become one on a note. Until Yuuri notices.

He jolts, spins around, and spills the rest of his water over the side of the balcony. There's a splash and somebody's cursing him from down below, but he's stuck, frozen in obvious mortification.

"Please don't stop on my account."

Yuuri meeps in a totally cute, completely caught off guard way. The song fades. Plastic skids onto the floorboards by Yuuri's elegant feet as he abandons the pitcher to turn off the coming tune.

Then it's just them.

"Yuuri, right?" He purrs it out into the space between them, and it has the desired effect. Yuuri gulps, fidgeting as flames lick his cheeks. He's tugging his shirt down to where it stretches awkwardly across his shoulders, collar strangling him as he attempts to conceal himself from Viktor's open ogling.

Yuuri jerks a nod of assent. His eyes stare longingly at his sliding door, but Viktor cuts into his plans for escape.

"Glad to finally make your acquaintance." Viktor's smile is of practiced ease, but he's shrieking inside. "I'm Viktor. Viktor Nikiforov. I'd shake your hand, but," he heightens himself on his toes and bends a look down at the drop between them, "it's a bit of a reach."

Yuuri replies only with another fidgety nod. His eyes are so wide that the whites of his eyes stand out in the darkness the sun casts him in. He trembles and quakes, looking downright terrified of him and Viktor isn't quite sure why. He didn't hit him in the face on purpose. He doesn't think he looks particularly imposing in his sleep swept tank and sweats that are three days past clean. He gentles his smile.

"Are you hungry, Yuuri? I'm famished. Care to join me for dinner?"

"Um." He hops from foot to foot. Viktor catches the bandages on his fingers as he clenches the edge of his shirt. More culinary incidents, perhaps?

"Say you will."

"I don't-"

"At least let me make up for the unfortunate greeting I gave you the other day."

Yuuri's hands fly up to cover the fading splotch across his nose, a blossom of lavender that is at home with his skin tone. Christ, Yuuri even makes a bruise look flattering.

He should probably keep that thought to himself. Definitely.

"Ah, you… really don't have to do that," Yuuri replies, voice muffled by a bridge of fingers.

"But I want to."

Yuuri blinks at him and Viktor has half a second to wonder if he's being too pushy before Yuuri's shoulders sag with the weight of resignation. He gives a partial chuckle that's choked back as he realizes that he sacrificed his shirt for his nose and goes back to attempting to turtle himself in his clothes. "Can I put on some pants first?"

"If you must."

Yuuri scurries back inside, tripping on the pitcher and crash landing out of sight. "I-I'm alright!" he weakly shouts and the sliding door closes slowly behind him.

Viktor beams, looks down at himself as his mind scrambles over possible outfits. He turns to his faithful companion who watched the exchange from her perch in the corner. "Well, don't just sit there, Makka. Help me figure out what to wear!"

* * *

Yuuri takes a minute, standing just inside of his home, hands clawed into his cheeks as he relearns how to breathe. He feels a massive attack loitering at the edges of his lungs, so he breathes and breathes large drags of useless air that don't help him come to terms with his situation one bit.

Viktor Nikiforov. Brilliant, class A musician, song-writer, _composer_ asked him to dinner. Yuuri is still only just coming to terms with the fact that he is his neighbor. The man whose work has helped Yuuri through dozens of breakdowns, helped push Yuuri into embracing himself and his passion as a dancer, is just beyond his walls. It's amazing. It's terrifying. It's… oh god. How's he supposed to breathe now?

After their fabulous first meeting, Yuuri decided to hide away. Creep in and out of his apartment, seal himself in if Viktor ever got curious. And he did get curious. He'd been over a few times, imprinting his knuckles into his door. He didn't know why, but it didn't matter. Yuuri could never get himself to answer. His hero, his saving grace, was there to speak to him. But Yuuri couldn't do it.

Now he's been caught in his _underwear_ dancing on his balcony like a loon. Yuuri probably couldn't make himself look any more like a dork if he wanted to.

Wrong. He so can. Just wait. He has plenty of opportunities coming up at dinner.

Why has he been invited again? Dorky, nobody Katsuki? He's just the idiot neighbor that walked into a door. This is just a gesture of apology. A pity dinner. Viktor is only being kind to him.

Yuuri packs himself inside one of his oversized sweaters, grabs a pair of his lesser frayed jeans that won't trip, fall, kill him and rolls the ends.

He's unprepared when he opens his door. Viktor is already there. Waiting. _Sparkling_. His remarkable build is dressed in a navy turtleneck and slacks, silver hair spilled charmingly over half of his features. Yuuri chokes on the way those crisp lashes fan out so neatly above shining viridian irises, teeth glinting a blinding white. His face is a perfectly manicured masterpiece, and Yuuri still doesn't know how to breathe.

The walk to dinner is quiet. Leaves are beginning to fall. Vivid colors litter the street and heave compact crunches beneath their feet. Yuuri focuses on the sound instead of the scribbles in his brain. Viktor inquires as to his preferences on eateries. Yuuri doesn't want to spend much, doesn't _have_ much, so they head around the corner to the curry restaurant he frequents with Phichit.

Yuuri takes his time with the menu. Viktor's eyes breathe insecurities all over him, and Yuuri squirms, discreetly hides himself to scrub at his face and assure that there is nothing on it. This is awkward. It's scary. Yuuri wants to run into the bathroom and never come out.

They order. The excuse of the menu is taken from him. He almost, _almost_ snatches it back from the waitress. He's trembling, but he hopes that he's got enough of a hold on it that it's not notic-

"You're shaking," Viktor comments.

Yuuri's right hand shoots out to grip his other, as if grabbing one vibrating hand with another will be effective in getting it to stop. "Yeah… I, uh, I do that sometimes. Pay it no mind."

"So… Yuuri. You dance. Professionally? I've seen you on a couple of occasions. You're a sight to behold."

Yuuri's mind sticks. Seen him on a couple of occasions? "When?"

"On your balcony." Yuuri dies a little inside. "I do so enjoy the show you put on. Your form and footwork are very refined. I would love to see you on stage."

Yuuri can feel himself turn darker with the praise. He doesn't know what he did to deserve it. Or if he should believe it. "I'm still studying," he quietly answers. Professional? Hah. As if.

"Well don't stop. I will be the first one to see your debut. I'm sure it will be magnificent."

His heart jumps even as his mind grumbles. Yuuri doesn't dispute his prediction. Not with his mouth. He carefully peaks up beneath his bangs. Viktor has a brightness that is toxic to his retinas, but he can't look away, even as their eyes meet and his mind screams to stop. staring. He's quickly succumbing to self-inflicted blindness.

Viktor's everything he's read about, heard about, never known. He's beautiful and his compliments make his inner beauty radiate almost as clearly as his music.

Viktor's about to say something more, but a woman halts the motion of his lips. She's pretty, blonde hair, violet eyes with a smooth gloss to her smile. She looks hysterically happy, a notepad out with a pen as she asks if he's really Viktor Nikiforov. A fan, Yuuri deduces. So does Viktor. His smile shines and they exchange words. He signs her paper with a flick of his wrist without a glance. She nearly throws him from his stool as she swallows him with her arms, apologizes, and scurries away.

Viktor looks like its normal as he smooths his hair back with a toss of a laugh. It probably, undoubtedly is. Yuuri couldn't feel more out of place.

"Sorry. That was probably weird for you. It's nothing really. I-"

"I know who you are." It drops more sternly than he'd intended. Viktor stops, expression thrown. Of course he knows who Viktor is. He's danced to more of his songs than anyone else's. He's practically melded his soul to his music. "I'm a… I've been a fan of your work for years." Yuuri pauses, hand halfway to his pocket, before he nabs his phone, flits through a few screens and shoves a video at Viktor.

Yuuri doesn't look. He can hear the soft tune, knows it by heart. His feet subconsciously move under the table, swirling out the dance that Viktor is watching. It's a performance he's most proud of. His tape that got him into his slot. The music is a piece of Viktor's. Always Viktor's.

When his phone silences, Yuuri glances up. Viktor has the most… stern pensive expression he's seen in a while, and it shatters the paltry amount of confidence he had. Yuuri reaches to grab his cell back, but Viktor tilts away onto the back two legs of his chair. The song plays again. And again. Viktor keeps watching and Yuuri doesn't understand why. Doesn't know what he's looking for.

"You really are spectacular, you know that?"

This time Yuuri succeeds in plucking his phone from his grasp. He hides his red face behind it as he closes the screens. His voice is quieter when he continues. "I felt… inspired when I first heard it. I couldn't get the song out of my head and before I knew it I was dancing to it. I used it to get into school. It's what I listen to when I feel… well, _everything_." Yuuri pretzels his fingers before him. This is much. So much. He feels the stirrings of emotion, wild in his breast.

Viktor places a careful palm over his wound fingers. "I'm honored, Yuuri."

As their eyes lock again, he decides to be honest. "I'm a little out of my mind, here. I don't know what to say to you. You, the person whose music has phoenixed me back from so many downfalls."

"Say whatever you like."

Food comes. It takes Yuuri a full fifteen minutes more before he relaxes. Viktor is a master conversationalist. And Yuuri can almost fool himself into thinking that Viktor is just another person he can talk to. A friend. That listens and talks and doesn't craft gold with his talents.

They share so many details with each other that Yuuri is a buzz with the new information. Viktor seems keen on dragging even the most minute facts and thoughts out of him. He decides quickly that Viktor must have been an actor in his past life. He knows how to look like he cares.

When Viktor asks, "Do you have a special person in your life, Yuuri? A girlfriend, boyfriend, perhaps?" Yuuri hiccups an ungodly sound.

His love life is a subject best left untouched. He gives a pitiful "no," and before Viktor's tongue finishes winding up his next words, Yuuri says, "I'm not looking for love, or any form of it. I just want to dance."

Viktor's brightness dulls for a millisecond, just enough to be noticeable, enough for Yuuri's brow to bend in question, but then he flips to a new topic. Like a switch. An impeccably timed, impossible to understand switch.

Talking about dogs lights Viktor up like a Christmas tree. He launches into a swarm of stories about Makkachin. Yuuri feels a special piece of himself melt with the vulnerability in his expression, the love. Yuuri talks about Vicchan, his beloved best friend that died a year ago. He cries, because he can't help it. It's a blight that he carries with him every day. He tries to scarf down his feelings with curry, but only succeeds in turning into a blubbery mess who nearly chokes on the chunks in his mouth. Viktor is so understanding. So much so that Yuuri, while inwardly face-palming with embarrassment, finds himself tripping into feelings that lie so much deeper than admiration for this man.

It's a dangerous feeling. Too much. Too frightening.

So he runs from it.

* * *

Phichit throws himself onto Yuuri's bed in exasperation. "You said you weren't interested in love!? Yuuri! He was seeing if you were available!" He heaves a sigh, long-winded like a camel in the Sahara, back broken by his ineptness.

"No. No, he wasn't," Yuuri chirps the denial around his phone. Viktor wouldn't be interested in a nobody, a laughable fan like him. "Even if he was, which he wasn't, I don't need… _that_. Dance is where my heart lies. It's all I need."

"Ugh, this complete devotion to dance thing is cute and all, but you really need some love in your life."

"Please. Since you and Seung Gil got together, you've been preaching about love to everyone. Don't get me wrong. I'm happy that you're so into each other, but love does not solve the world's problems. Besides, I wouldn't know what to do with love if it-"

"Bashed you in the face?" Phichit's laying on his stomach now, hands curled around his chin, a cocky smile on his face as his leg traces an unknown pattern in the air behind him.

Yuuri scowls, "Oh, shut up," and shoves his face further into his phone screen.

"Staring at his number again?"

"Nope! I'm making my grocery list, actually." His finger swiftly swipes from his contacts to his notepad app like he wasn't just internally squeeing about the new addition to his phone. The God of Music has touched his cell, left his mark in the form of the promise of future communication. Yuuri thinks it may actually become his new shrine, eyes devoted and worshipful to the ten digits. It will give the wall between his and Viktor's apartments some relief.

"Oh, add some peanut butter. I ate the last of it. Get some bell peppers, too. We should make some stir fry. And by we I mean me because I don't feel like dying tonight."

"Ha. Ha. You're just so funny." Yuuri stands and tosses his phone in front of his lazed friend. "Fine. You make the list then." Phichit's smile curves lecherously and Yuuri knows he's made a bad move as tan fingers type with an infinitely faster speed than he's capable of. "If you put grandma porn or something of the sort on there, I'm disowning you."

A laugh punches out of Phichit, but the caught in the cookie jar expression on his face let's Yuuri know that he's hit the mark. "I'm not _that_ sick. BUT you do need some condoms."

Yuuri sputters all over himself. "How would you know? And why would I need condoms? I'm not like you, going at it like a bunny with my boyfriend."

"No, but you could be," and he glances not so innocently over at the wall beside Yuuri's bed. "Ah! Lube. Definitely lube. Your super talented, absolutely gorgeous idol lives next door. You're definitely low on lube."

The implication draws a superb blush across Yuuri's softly bruised nose. "That's it! Give that back!" Yuuri lunges for him, but Phichit scrabbles away before his body fwumps onto the now empty mattress. Phichit's still typing crude things, his grin victorious. "You're corrupting my phone's innocence."

"Says the guy who was just eye fucking his hero's number," he says as he taunts Yuuri with his phone just inches from his face.

Yuuri pounces. He flings himself onto his best friend and they tumble to the floor. There's cackles. Pokes and prods. Tickling and shrieking. Yuuri finally tackles him fully, bear wrestling him to the floor until Phichit threatens to shove his cell down his pants.

"Phichit," Yuuri whines, all nasally and annoyed. "Give it."

"Come on, Yuuri. Lighten up. It's not like anyone's gonna-" his voice hitches. Yuuri doesn't like that. Not at all.

"What?"

Phichit looks back at him. Then at the phone. Then at him. His gaze oscillates a few more times before Yuuri gets really concerned. Guilt stains Phichit's irises, even as his scrunched lips hide laughter. "I _might_ … have just sent your list to your last added contact."

Phichit sets the phone down between them and crawls away slowly, leaving the bomb to explode in Yuuri's brain. "EHHHHHHHH!?" Yuuri goes for his phone, but stops short at touching it. He can't look at it. Absolutely _will not_ look. His latest contact was-

His phone chirps and the notification light flashes. Yuuri slowly reaches out. His stomach dissolves inside of him as he reads the response.

 _"Is this some kind of odd foreplay? My, my, Yuuri. I think I should at least get flowers before being sent on a grocery run."_

The phone slips out of his hand. Paling, Yuuri falls over to his side, twitching like a bug that just got smacked out of the air.

He's never leaving his apartment now.

* * *

Yuuri's busy becoming one with his comforter. He's engulfed himself in it, a giant lump in the center of his bed as he hides from the knocks at his door. It's Viktor. And Yuuri can't even.

"I guess I'll just have to stand here until you answer," Viktor hollers through the door. Yuuri flinches, but manages to push himself to his demise.

He answers through a sliver in the door, one eye peeking out. Viktor's radiant as always, not even phased by the mishap of the day before. Yuuri's still ready to shrink into the floorboards. "Hey, there… V-Viktor." The name clatters off his tongue, strange and rusty.

"Hey, yourself. Thought I'd drop this off for you. Hope I'm not terribly late with it all."

A reusable shopping bag is in his hand. Yuuri takes it numbly. "You… You actually bought my groceries?"

"Of course. Your wish is my command."

"But… you…" Yuuri's hands shake as he opens the sack. He squeaks at the sight and shoves the sides closed. "Oh god…"

"I didn't know your size, so I bought my own." Viktor bats his lustful eyelashes and reaches a hand to caress Yuuri's glowing cheek. Meanwhile, Yuuri is convinced that he's died. He can feel his spirit floating above him. The last sounds of his shattered dignity come out as intermittent cracks through his gaping mouth. "Just let me know when you're ready to give up this charade and profess your love for me." With a wink, he leaves to his own apartment.

Yuuri goes back to suffocating himself in his bedclothes.

* * *

Yuuri spends the next few weeks attempting to make himself scarce again. To his dismay, his efforts generally end up in vain. Viktor is everywhere. Greeting him on his walks with his adorable dog. Offering him a cup of coffee. Inviting him to some gathering or other. Yuuri can't even water his plants without Viktor being there, already out on his own balcony as he's watching the goings on below or scribbling down his brilliance. Yuuri has to make a conscious effort not to stare, not to imagine how the gears in that beautiful head are turning, not to wonder what kind of song he's crafting out of nothing.

Yuuri hears the process through his walls some nights. His body moves without his permission as his mind dances with the notes that hum innocently into his space. Viktor's music often lulls him to sleep, and even though Yuuri can't stomach to see the man, he can't believe he's lucky enough to live next to him. To get to listen to the legend at work.

Kenjirou keeps getting Yuuri's and Viktor's mail mixed up. Kenjirou is too flustered to answer exactly _how_ he keeps slipping their mail into the wrong boxes, but Yuuri swears that Phichit is behind this. It becomes another reluctant routine with his neighbor, trading mail. Yuuri hates having to bother Viktor. Most of the time, Yuuri waits until the sounds through the walls soften to idleness, but Viktor never seems to mind. He's always smiling. Always sweet. Always perfect.

As time passes, though, things mellow out, and Yuuri manages to not spaz in front of Viktor again. A pattern that his friend's cat decides to decimate with her kitty claws.

He's catsitting for Sara as she goes on vacation. It's only two weeks and while Yuuri has had little experience with cats, Sara assures him that Rowena is friendly and requires very little care. She tells him what and when to feed her, how to take care of her litter, what her favorite toy is, and that she mostly enjoys lounging on the balcony. After the first day, Yuuri is about to think that catsitting is pretty easy. But when Yuuri comes out to find a pair of boxers on his balcony that are definitely not his, Yuuri can only stare at Rowena in horror. The next day it's a thong. The next day Yuuri waits and watches to see where the undergarments come from. He has a sneaking suspicion that he knows, but surely he hasn't accrued that much bad karma in his life.

He's so wrong.

He watches as the sleek black cat leaps across the gap between his and Viktor's balconies, his heart in his throat the entire time. He wishes with every fiber of his being that Rowena jumps to the next one over, but she stays, tail flicking as she glances over at Yuuri, a menacing glint in her eye as she stalks into Viktor's _open sliding door_.

"Oh, please no."

She eventually emerges, cat face looking downright superior as her paws flit her back over into his space, prize in mouth. She wanders over to him and drops another black lace thong at his feet. Yuuri wants to cry, but Rowena looks unconcerned with his distress and goes back inside.

Sara must have forgotten to clue him in on her cat having a penchant for collecting… _things_. Surely he would have preferred a dead mouse, bird, _anything_ , but this.

It happens again. And again. Until he finally decides to lock the demonic cat in until its owner comes back. Viktor's undergarments are shoved into a bag under his bed until he decides he's ready for his grave.

* * *

Yuuri has a cat that stares. Viktor takes notice of this as he's outside gathering inspiration. The little black thing is out on Yuuri's balcony, orange eyes trailing his movements. She visits sometimes. Viktor doesn't mind. He often leaves his door open to the outside world and all its musical wonders, so when she wanders in, he accepts her with a smile. Makkachin's happy to have a visitor and playfully noses at her head even as she goes ignored. Viktor gives the cat cream, happy strokes, but largely just lets her inspect his quarters as he goes back to work. Viktor ends up liking her presence, a part of Yuuri in his home, and leaves his back door open for her even as he leaves for his studio.

It only lasts for about a week before his unannounced visitor stops showing. It's a few days later when he gets a follow-up visit from his very entrancing, very-flushed neighbor.

Mila is painting his face again. It's what she does when she's stuck on a project and Viktor's face is versatile as all hell, apparently. So now he looks like a banshee, face ghastly and terrifying, a mop of black hair on his head that makes his scalp itch. He used to think that her being a special effects makeup artist was cool, until it meant that he had to become her personal model. But he lets her brush her ideas into his skin as she gets him to gush about his new interest. It's not very hard, really. Yuuri is always on his lips, scattered across his pages in the form of lyrics and notes.

Mila's in the middle of cooing at his story and adhering a latex blood drip to his lower lids, when there's a timid tap on his door. He doesn't lend a thought to how he looks, but remembers when Yuuri shrieks at the sight of him. Yuuri startles instantly, the bag in his hands flinging from his grip, contents now scattered around the hall.

"Hi, Yuuri," Viktor chirps after a moment, "Sorry to give you a heart… attack…" He slows as he watches Yuuri whip around the hall floor, picking up the- _is that underwear?_ -items that he lost. Yuuri looks everywhere but at his face.

"Um… I was watching my friend's cat and she kept bringing me, erm, _things_. I'm… uh… pretty sure that they're yours and… _I'msosorryItriednottolookhere_." Yuuri bows, thrusting out the bag towards him. Viktor carefully extracts the bag from his shaky grip, looks in and realizes that yes, it was underwear. His, in fact. He had found it pretty strange that the cat had liked to roll around in his dresser drawers.

"Tried not to look?" Viktor laughs, a hearty sound that fills his stomach.

Viktor has tried to keep himself at a friend level for now, allowing Yuuri to form more of an attachment to him, or at least feel something more for him other than a fan's dedication. He needs Yuuri to know him, to like him for him, not just his music, not just his accomplishments and his public persona. To see _him_. He longs for the day that Yuuri isn't intimidated by his presence.

So he's patient. Gives Yuuri time to adjust to the person he is.

He's not above teasing his adoration into him, though.

"Why? You waiting for a show?"

"No! No, no, well… I-" he stutters, hand gripping his arm as his nails torment his skin.

Viktor smiles, bends to meet his downturned gaze. While he enjoys teasing Yuuri, he doesn't want him to feel bullied. "Thank you for returning them." Yuuri looks uncertain and uncomfortable and Viktor's sure that this is going to set their… relationship? friendship? whatevership back again. "You can go now, Yuuri."

He bows again and bolts, a door slam left in his wake.

"So that's Yuuri?" Mila calls from her spot behind him. "He sounds sweet, Viktor. Do try to be careful with this one. He looked like you were going to eat him."

Viktor bites back a sigh. He knows better than anyone that this is not ideal. This is not how he wants them to be, separated by awkwardness and embarrassment and a wall. But he melds on a grin, flicks a tongue over his upper lip. This is not Mila's problem. "That's the idea. He looks scrumptious, no?"

Mila, like Chris, sees into his eyes too easily. She purses her lips as she dips a gloved fingertip back into the glue. "Why are you so insistent on being with him?"

Viktor knows the answer to this, acute within him.

 _Because he makes my heart soar._

* * *

Time passes with a wicked slowness. Viktor feels it in his limbs, his membranes and atoms, some impatient lethargy stealing his thoughts from the chorus chiming in his brain. He wants to see Yuuri. Hear him. Feel him. The small indulgences he's allowed lately are not enough. If anything, the quiet smiles and light brushings and morning greetings in the halls are only driving him crazy. His yearning has not ceased or slowed, but only increased in its ferocity. Viktor's left strewn across his bed, thinking on Yuuri, his singular focus for the past months, his new muse.

His music reflects.

Yakov's noticed the change to his work. It's livelier, stitched with a passion that has yet to be quelled, swelling with an intensity that excites and ignites, caressed with an intimacy that cannot be denied. Yakov has warned him, too, that a love like this, one that melds its way into every facet of his self, can only mean trouble. Heartbreak down the line. Viktor doesn't listen. Does he ever? He's yet to tell him that the heartbreak has already set in. That the love is currently tragically one-sided. Yakov would only laugh at him.

Viktor decides that a push is in order.

He waits until Yuuri is getting home. He's distracted momentarily by his presence, his lithe body and the spirit it holds. Before Yuuri can get away, he asks him to accompany him for coffee. Yuuri's going to decline. He can see it in how his brow jerks and his bandaged fingers twitch over his apartment doorknob.

But Viktor's sly. He knows how to convince, and he gives it every ounce of effort he's held back since he first recognized the shuttered shyness and crippling timidness Yuuri casts himself behind.

Yuuri is quiet and compact, everything his dancing is not. Viktor loves this Yuuri, too. The way he carefully absorbs the world from behind the steam of his coffee, a fluttery pulse shaking out through the rest of him.

It's easier when they're alone together, a forced closeness pulling Yuuri from his barriers. No wall. No distance between their balconies. No excuses of classes or dance. And as with their lone dinner, Viktor eases the smiles out of him, the laughter.

"What are you doing in the slum of apartments with the rest of us? Shouldn't you be, I don't know, living somewhere with golden walls and singing angels-"

"Heaven?" Viktor laughs. "You think I should live in heaven?"

"Well, you were born there, after all," Yuuri grumbles into his cup, but his eyes crescent in telling enjoyment.

The truths come with a bit more digging.

The bandages are not from his poor cooking skills. They cover chewed fingertips, a result of his anxiety, his deep seeded worries given physical form as he chews his nails to the bit and bites the surrounding skin into bloody, mangled flesh. He has attacks that carve out any confidence he has and rips out the oxygen from his lungs. He has days that go unknown, unremembered. Days where he sleeps because everything else is too blinding.

Viktor's sobered by the blunt realness of it. Viktor had thought Yuuri _shy_ , maybe pitifully unbalanced by a lack of confidence. This truth yanks on his heart. He feels the fragility to the man in front of him now, but also the strength that he holds. Yuuri is afraid of so much, imprisoned by a shapeless enemy that is always with him like a shadow even the absence of light cannot will away. But he still wakes, moves forward, finds it in himself to dance, and dance with majesty.

"Sometimes I get too muddled in my own thoughts," Yuuri finishes, overly simplified with a shrug.

Viktor's still processing. Adjusting to these new lenses Yuuri has supplied him with. Yuuri is a mess, but a blessed mess that Viktor would gladly worship every night of the week.

The silence curls Yuuri into himself. He picks at his lone undamaged finger. Viktor holds his hand steady to the table before it can reach his teeth.

"You can come to me, you know? When the world is too heavy to bear, I can help you with the weight." There is no pity in his eyes, no judgement. Because he feels neither. All he feels is amazement, pride. Yuuri is _beautiful_. For so many reasons. In so many ways. But he is also strong. A true warrior. Viktor has found only more reasons to admire him.

"You can come to me, too."

Yuuri upturns his hand in Viktor's hold and Viktor finds himself surprised. Shocked. As that hand grips his, there is something knowing and penetrating to Yuuri's gaze that Viktor has never seen before.

"I-I mean… there's a sadness to you, and your recent music. A sort of emptiness. I think… that if you ever need someone to talk to… I can be that person." His smile wavers with uncertainty, but it's potent with meaning.

Viktor's forgotten words. Tomes of his vocabulary shredded. His three tongues gone numb, useless. There's an ache to spill himself into his coffee, flow everything forth onto the table, into Yuuri. His emotions clump at the back of his throat, untranslated and unrecognizable.

All he can do is nod and grip back.

* * *

It was an exhausting day at his studio. He spent hours upon hours with different musicians and vocalists, trying to capture the right sounds, to evoke the right feelings. It's been the same routine for days, and he's tired, brain cells all plucked out. The night soothes his ears with silence. Usually, it's the silence that he's trying to run from, a void that needs to be filled with wholesome harmonies or frantic staccatos or world weary requiems.

Right now, it's the hum of the outside, the tick to his kitchen clock that insinuates a stillness he needs.

He's almost asleep when he hears it. There's hushed snuffles choked back with gasps. A muffled cry that sounds of a deep sorrow.

 _Yuuri_

For the sake of privacy, Viktor wants to ignore it, but he can't. Yuuri is crying right beside him, and he told him that he'd be there. He would help carry his burdens.

Viktor tries. He puts his hand to the wall between them. His fingers clench against it, like he would Yuuri's hand. Holding tight, secure, safe. He wishes that he could just reach through, hold and assure Yuuri, breathe him in and all his worries. Decimate his demons.

The soft weeping erupts into an ugly sob and Viktor doesn't know what to do as his little beam of sunlight withers into a hurricane of sorrow. All he knows is that he can't be satisfied with this. This muted support is not working for him. He needs to touch. To soothe. He is not a silent guardian.

"Yuuri?" his voice stumbles out, a reflection of his inner turmoil. Yuuri quiets swiftly. "Yuuri, come to me. Let me in." The contradiction rolls off his tongue. He clings to the wall now, lips a blush against it as he presses his intention, his devotion, into the structure. There's a long moment where there's nothing. The silence turns rotten. It is no longer a comfort in the face of a long day, but an enemy that Viktor wishes to slay with Yuuri's sweet happiness. "Please, Yuuri?"

There's the softest, almost imperceptible brush of a hand at his door. Viktor is at it without a second's pass. Yuuri is a torrent of grief and despair, unwound and overflowing in the unforgiving fluorescent light of the hall. The tears shatter Viktor and he gathers Yuuri into his arms, lets him spill into him.

He thinks only of Yuuri as they lay entangled on his couch. His puffed cheeks. His matted bangs. His lack of glasses and faint tremors. His words as he recounts to Viktor his horrid display that day. How he'd been a train wreck in front of his most esteemed instructor, been shooed off with the simple dismissal of her hand and upturned nose. Viktor shushes it all away with stroking hands and encouraging murmurs.

Makkachin eventually nuzzles herself between them, breaking into Yuuri's pain with fuzzy welcomes.

"Hey there, Makka. How you been, girl?" Yuuri laughs back the snot clogging his sinuses, smiles his heartbreak against her comfort. Viktor knows this magic. Makkachin's a sorceress that can make even the most troublesome days coo at her tail.

Viktor pulls back, even as his fingers still long to settle Yuuri's frayed wires.

"I'm sorry, Viktor. I'm disturbing your evening. This is so unfair of me." He's knuckling his eyes as he says this, stretching a leg past their jumbled forms on the couch to peel himself away.

"I offered my help, didn't I?"

"Yes, but-"

"So I'm helping, right?" Viktor jerks out a smile and nuzzles his nose into Yuuri's arm to procure a laugh, puppy dog eyes glittering. He's no Makka, but he has his own undeniable puppyish charm.

"Yeah." He settles back as his chuckles subside. "I guess you are." And Yuuri pats his head with gratefulness, unaware of how that lone action jellies Viktor's body.

"You aren't going to quit?" Viktor asks like he's ordering, but the words aren't sharp with command. They're begging softness. He would die if Yuuri let this setback consume him, let one day cleave his wings when he was so close to soaring. Yuuri's mind is consumed by the times he falls, blind to the times he flies. Viktor prays to Yuuri's strength, a steel toothed, bloody knuckled goddess that is summoned forth to rage over Yuuri's fears.

"No. I won't. I just need to find myself again, I suppose. I'll dance to something of yours. That usually helps me find my footing."

Viktor's touched, but he snorts out a derision that startles even him. "Just as long as it's not one of my recent works. Your talent would be wasted on such worthless-"

"Your music hasn't been worthless," Yuuri's quick to correct, an exclamation that knocks the walls with his own form of begging pooling in his eyes. "Sure your latest has been rather solemn, lonely. But… we can all relate to that… in some way. Isolationism, sorrow, listlessness. It wasn't worthless. Just different." He smiles into Makkachin's fur. "I like different."

Viktor's heart reacts. The thundering palpitations beat on his brain, his mind victim to the way Yuuri never fails to move him.

They continue talking, close knit and bleary eyed until they're bathed in the half-light between early morning and dawn.

Viktor does his best to piece Yuuri back together.

He doesn't notice as his own pieces shift into place.

* * *

They've gotten closer, Viktor delights as he tells Chris. They're regular friends now. Yuuri doesn't flinch from him, _much_ , anymore. He doesn't shake. Barely stutters. They meet for coffee regularly now and when Yuuri dances as he waters his plants, Viktor joins him. They laugh and dance, together but separate, and while Viktor is a wonder at producing music with his body, Yuuri is the winner hands down at following a beat with musical steps and sashaying hips.

"I'm not sure I'm a Rapunzel kind of gal," Viktor comments as he preens himself in the mirror. The Halloween gathering at Chris' bar is in a few hours and _Yuuri's_ going. It causes him to scrutinize his image all the more, to fuss with the blonde wig that tickles his ankles, left loose like a flowing mane. "Maybe I should have gone with Regina George. I would have rocked that bitch."

"Eh," Chris answers, not even casting a glance his way as he's too busy shrink-wrapping breasts to his chest with a glimmering pink dress. "You're a fugly slut any day of the year. You don't need Halloween for that. Although, you didn't look half bad as Lady Gaga. We're all going to mourn that Poker Face outfit. It really brought out your ass. I don't know who you're trying to fool acting like a pretty princess."

"I'm a perfect princess and you know it." He whips the long wig off his shoulder and into Chris' face. It gets in the younger man's mouth and he spits out the strands with a sour look. "You're just jealous because you're the stepmother. This is my story. Go choke on your salmon, Fiona."

"That's not what I'm going to be choking on tonight…"

"Are you two divas ready yet?" Mila enters the room, already glammed as Poison Ivy. Her make-up skills take it up a notch, lips thick with poison as vines climb up any uncovered skin.

Chris whistles. "Damn, Mila. If I were into women."

"I still wouldn't give you the time of day."

"Hey, do you know if Georgi's coming?" Viktor asks as he's applying his mascara.

"He is. He's still hoping Anya will show up." Mila scoffs, and comes up to finish primping Viktor. He gives her his face willingly. "No one invited her, right?"

"Of course not. Last thing we need is those two getting together again."

"What is he going to be?" Viktor asks, and the red head swats him as she's doing his lips. He continues, because she's funny when she's pissed and he's actually hoping he's not right. "Tell me it's not-"

"The Phantom," both Mila and Chris chime.

"Again?"

Mila smacks him again, this time whacking against his wig in a way that stabs his clips into his scalp. "What's the harm? He'll be moping around for his Christine all night anyway."

* * *

Phichit declares, with blonde strands cut against his brow and his ass cinched in a leather mini-skirt, that he is going to be Buffy. Yuuri wants to hurl when Phichit announces that it's because he finally convinced Seung Gil to be his Angel. They're wearing couples costumes. Of course they are.

It isn't until they get to the bar that Yuuri realizes he's been tricked into his own half of a costume duo. Viktor's already there, hip perched casually on a stool, long hair spilling delicately along every curve and dip of his body, expression bored beneath the umbrella of his drink. The dress and long locks immediately halt Yuuri in his tracks, not because the attire looks absurdly flattering on Viktor, but because he cannot believe that he allowed himself to fall into such a trap.

Yuuri takes one look and wants to strangle Phichit. And hide in a corner. But he must maim his best friend first.

"Phichit, why did you just so happen to have a _Flynn Rider_ costume that matches Viktor's Rapunzel?" But Phichit's gone from his side, already sauntering over to his fairytale romance with his favorite vampire. " _Phichit_!" he whisper-screeches, because Viktor's already making his way over to him. He can't run, can't hide because-

"We match," Viktor says.

Yuuri tries not to huddle himself in the peak of his stiff collar, his smile an awkward scrawl. His shoulders aren't broad enough for his costume and the boots squeak when he walks. His hairline feels stretched from his scalp with glue. He can't be a pretty sight. Viktor, though, is gawp-worthy even as the daintiness of his costume is rumpled by a regal jawline and the curt jut of his collarbone. Yuuri can feel himself flush beneath cheap fabric.

This is _so_ Phichit's fault. Yuuri catches a look of Chris' as he's served some vibrant cocktail and he knows, just _knows_ , that this is somehow his fault, too.

"I guess we do."

"You look positively dashing, Yuuri."

"You look very, um…" beautiful sounds too trite, too wrong, too perfect, "beautiful."

"Why thank you."

Yuuri chuckles as Viktor actually curtsies with his praise. "Why Rapunzel? You seem more of an Elle Woods to me."

Viktor's lips curl with such an illegally delicious smirk that Yuuri feels his expression dip into blatant interest. It shouldn't be possible. He's in a _princess dress_. But good lord, Yuuri is singed all the way down to the blood in his veins by the absolute hotness of this man. Viktor leans forward until his lips meet the shell of Yuuri's ear. The slow elongation of his neck as it's fully revealed to Yuuri is incredibly distracting. "Should I bend and snap for you?"

Yuuri chokes out a woefully unattractive snort-giggle into his drink. "Only if it's with bunny ears and a tail," he fires back, like it's easy, like he's not stabbing down every bit of embarrassment that claw at his insides.

"Oh, but those would serve you much better, darling Yuuri."

Yuuri doesn't have a comeback. His mind runs blank with anything flirty or witty or sarcastic. But the song changes and Yuuri snatches Viktor's hand, eager as he deposits his drink at the bar. "Dance with me." Yuuri pulls Viktor close, and he can smell his bourbon sweet smile on his skin.

"I would love to."

Yuuri's never known how to express himself with words. They fail him at the worst of times, traitorous fairies that flit away when he needs them. Dance is his language. Yuuri often lets his body take over for his tongue.

Time is a wasted haze, loud gasps of laughs against fake hair, comical dance moves that are only half executed in the crush of meat and bone and sweat, ears blown by the upbeat of music and neighboring conversations and clinking glasses.

Viktor basks in the energy of the place. Alight with so much life, he sparkles, unfiltered and unafraid. He just _belongs_. People flock to him and his magnetizing happiness. Yuuri would be jealous, except he's right there with him, in the middle of all these strange faces made stranger by masks and gobs of make-up.

One stranger gets handsy. A lumberjack werewolf crowds Viktor, blatantly edging out Yuuri as he sneaks his hands into the fabric at Viktor's hips. It doesn't go well for him. Yuuri elbows him in the ribs just as Viktor knocks one into his rubber nose. He's eventually escorted out as Viktor princess waves him goodbye with a slow rock of his elbow and wrist.

"My savior." Viktor tosses his arms around Yuuri, pulling him into a tight spin that almost steals Yuuri from his feet. He's glad Viktor's wearing flats or the sheer length of him would have squashed his poor body along with his pride.

"As if I did anything. That guy was almost KOed by your punch."

"Meh, I may be a princess, but I'm no damsel in distress."

"You certainly aren't," Yuuri muses as Viktor twirls a blonde strand with a finger, body angled coy. "You miss your long hair, don't you?" Yuuri remembers when it was long, back when he only knew the man from magazine articles and the personality within his art.

"Some days."

"It's nice on you, but I think I like the open space of you without the distraction." He doesn't know what comes over him as he brushes the messy curtain back to tame now errant and sticky strands behind Viktor's ears. It allows Viktor's viridian irises to pop forth, his shocked smile quickly evolving into a beam.

Much conversation is accented by sips and swallows and gulps of alcohol. Soon enough, they've somehow landed themselves in a game of darts. Yuuri's surprised that they're winning, though he's spent enough time at the bar wing manning for Phichit that he's honed his aim for this game. The ice in his glass clinks as the dart zips with a jerk of his wrist.

"Bullseye! I think… Right?" He bends himself sideways, narrowing his eyes despite it doing nothing to help sharpen his sight. All it does is succeed in spilling his drink all over himself.

Viktor's there to right him with caring hands on his biceps. "Hah, I think you've had enough."

"Oh, trust me, you haven't seen when I've had enough."

"Is that a challenge?"

He parries Viktor with one of the Russian's signature winks, but the effect's lost as he stumbles forward into him. He face plants into the empty cleavage of Viktor's dress. _Heeeellooooo_ , fine plain of hardened muscle. He's definitely not complaining. But he is beyond embarrassed.

"Sorry," he nervously chuckles, fingers already plucking against themselves. "I didn't mean to knock into you."

"Perfectly fine. I can halt all other potential suitors in their tracks," Viktor replies as he wraps his arm securely around Yuuri's waist and viciously eyes Lara Croft in the corner.

"What?"

"You haven't even noticed the eyes on you, have you?"

"What eyes?" He turns to look, but Viktor hooks a finger on his chin to home his gaze back.

"Nope. Eyes here." There's only a shred of air left between them. Yuuri's hyper focused on Viktor now, to all that encompasses this man. Every gorgeous, otherworldly feature. His effortless brow. His regal cheekbones. His deeply toned strength that holds him in place. "Only on me."

Yuuri feels the lack of air, acute in his chest. Something sings between them, harmonious and wild. It's the climbing heat in his body. The weight of Viktor's undeniably _besotted_ gaze. It's too much. A firm hand guards Yuuri's face. "I think I could use another drink." He tries to pretend that Viktor's face doesn't fall, that his smile isn't dampened by disappointment.

"Of course." Viktor retreats.

Yuuri reflects as the air returns, a heavy weighted blossom in his chest. There's almost too much of it now. He can breathe easier, but Yuuri finds that he doesn't want to. He misses that near suffocating sensation he gets in Viktor's presence, where the whole of him is sensitive to Viktor's unpredictable actions. He's never been particularly fond of feeling vulnerable, but Viktor makes it seem okay, completely natural. Viktor has yet to reject any piece of him, even his least attractive features. To Viktor, his anxiety is a facet of himself, something he's never faulted Yuuri for.

Yuuri wonders if he can truly fall back into his strict mindset of dance and only dance. After meeting Viktor, his hero turned so much more, it seems unlikely. He wants to make an exception. Desires to break his own stupid rule and let Viktor in. He doesn't know what will happen if he does. He doesn't know if Viktor will even truly want him, if the feelings he thinks Viktor has for him are just an illusion. Not knowing terrifies him.

Fear is just another thrilling emotion Viktor inspires within him.

Victor defaults into casual flirtiness when he returns. His smile is brilliant, like the death of the sun in the sky. It's painful to Yuuri.

"Trick or treat?" Viktor asks, lips already teasing the rim of his own glass. Viktor's referring to the name of the drink in his palm, a bewitching brew that has a sweetness that's known to twist your skull for hours afterwards. But the question gives Yuuri an idea.

Yuuri tilts his head towards Viktor, face hanging so dangerously close that Yuuri hears the swish of alcohol retreat in a heavy swallow down Viktor's throat. Viktor leans forward as well, but Yuuri ducks down and seizes the glass before their lips can meet. He tosses it back, the coconut rum hairy on his uvula. Viktor laughs at his tease, but Yuuri's got more tricks up his sleeve.

"Why not both?" And then he yanks Viktor forward by a puffed sleeve and kisses him.

Yuuri's done running.

The kiss feels like jumping in the ocean in the middle of January, ice water shattering around him, body jolted into shock, skin a pink tinted sting that will last for hours. It feels like sticking his head out the window of a car that's flying down the freeway, all tangled hair and wind-whipped lips. It feels like sinking into warm sheets after a stressful day, a full body _ah_ that fills him with the comfort and safety of home. It feels like listening to his heart beat for the first time, a tender drum blown ginormous in his ears, reminding him that he's _alive_.

It's everything at once quietly packed into one moment.

Viktor holds him and he kisses with so much longing and patience that Yuuri wants to smack himself. He knows he doesn't deserve this. He's been telling himself that for weeks. This man that melds the world and all of its wonders into music is worthy of stars, planets, _galaxies_. Yuuri is mere space dust.

Yuuri doesn't deserve him, but he wants him. That's good enough for now.

"God, that took forever," Viktor pulls back and his sigh sounds complete, "but it was so worth it."

Yuuri's smile wobbles. "Hope I didn't keep you waiting too long."

* * *

Days are… lazier for them now. In the spaces between composing and school and dance Yuuri and Viktor twist their lives together and enjoy moments where there is nothing but them. Daily chaos dissolves into warm kisses and drifting fingers. Fire alarms are disabled as Yuuri learns kitchen basics with Viktor curled around his back. Tongues rearrange themselves to slowly, arduously speak new words. Personalized trivia games go on for hours as they turn themselves inside out.

They learn what it's like to be a part of each other's lives.

What it's like to fall in love.

Things don't just come together all in one night. It's not easy, Yuuri finds. Letting himself be seen, bare boned and empty down to his core. Seeing someone else cleaved down to their soul.

It's painful, but beautiful.

He's slowly tearing apart his heart with ragged fingernails, sewing half to Viktor's stitch by agonizing stitch. The two of them are becoming whole in some messy process that ends up more a Frankenstein than a masterpiece. Complete with tears, fights and invisible strings that hold them both back with fear and hesitancy. (They both need to work on communication. Yuuri sees too little within himself, needs to find the courage to love himself, flaws and all. Viktor needs to learn that his own vulnerabilities aren't sins to be hidden.) But it's homemade. Their own little concoction of what they are together. A four letter word made real, raw in their chests, honest in their throats.

Another stich is added one night as they're still just beginning the process.

A fine winter chill has them collapsed on Yuuri's couch, tangled together for warmth.

Amongst other things.

Yuuri breathes out Viktor's name, a rush of air into his hair. Viktor nips and sucks a tender pattern into his neck, across his collarbone as Yuuri's shirt falls loose. The way Viktor's fingers trail butterfly flutters against his torso makes a laugh bubble up, but it's hitched into a gasp halfway out. A deluge of feelings take over his stomach, spilling warmth down his back and trembling him to his toes. It feels scary-safe in a way Yuuri thought impossible, but Viktor constantly inspires logic defying feelings within him.

Yuuri digs the scruff of his bandaged fingers into god sculpted shoulder blades. A hiss of his name is answered back. Yuuri seeks his lips, bites at them just as he gnaws at Viktor's crumbling composure. Viktor likes to act as some all experienced Casanova with him, but the simplest of Yuuri's advances chisels him down into lovesick mush.

Yuuri feels powerful with Viktor. Armor fortified with trust and blade sharp with adoration. It comes with responsibility, heavy in his ribcage.

Yuuri makes a sound as Viktor thumbs over the bump of his ankle. Viktor suddenly freezes, pupils resizing as he stares at Yuuri's neck like it's a fine tuned instrument. Yuuri knows that look. An epiphany has stolen his boyfriend from their passionate session.

Yuuri huffs out a laugh, sitting up from the couch. Viktor apologizes with a kiss to his ear and a squeeze around his middle.

Viktor's in the middle of collecting himself, leaving to his own apartment, maybe his studio, but Yuuri tentatively asks "Could I-um…" Viktor stops, stares and Yuuri feels the swell of space, cold air against his exposed body. "Could I watch?"

"Yuuuuuri, my little voyeur. You can watch me anytime."

"Oh, hell."

Viktor's eyes twinkle with excitement, all child craft glitters, made complete by the sudden bashfulness of a five year old. "I… actually want to show you something."

It's eleven at night on a Saturday, poor time to be out in the city if you plan on taxiing your way. Heavy traffic and busy drivers do nothing to hinder Viktor. He stops traffic with his presence. One whistle, meticulous in its pitch, catches three taxis at once. Viktor nabs Yuuri's stunned hand and steals him into the night.

Yuuri's distracted when they get there. Instruments upon instruments. Speakers taller than him. A sound room that has revitalized his dancing spirit time after time. _Viktor Nikiforov_ 's name gilded in gold. Trophies and awards decorating the back wall. Yuuri's little fangirl heart is going to rupture.

Viktor's laugh startles him out of the heavens. He looks back to the god merrily perched on his throne. He almost looks as happy as Yuuri.

"You look like you're going to cry."

"I just might." He sniffs, loud and exaggerated. It's a diversion he grants Viktor, who looks like he may cry, too.

"I have a concert tour coming up." His voice sounds scratched up and wary. Yuuri finds himself confused. "There's a song that requires a dancer's accompaniment to it and I- Since it's my piece, my program, really, I get to choose my dancer and… I choose you, Yuuri. Always you."

Yuuri blinks. Blinks. Blinks again. But it's not his eyes deceiving him. "Me? You want me to do it? That's insane. You can't. I'll mess everything up for you. Your song!"

"It's because of the song." Viktor shakes his head, leisurely like he expected this reaction and has fortified himself to combat it. "It can't be anyone but you. It was born from you." Without looking at him, Viktor swivels in his chair to face one of his massive control surfaces.

With a twist of his fingers, a sound spills forth.

There's a startling clatter of symbols. They clash and shatter out. Yuuri feels himself jump at the suddenness. It's quick, over sooner than he expected. "What was that?"

"The light of surprise in your eyes."

Yuuri's brain has only just begun to process the words, the _implications_ , when-

The low hum of a cello smooths out of the studio monitor. It's calming. A cadence that clears the mind.

"The serenity of your smile."

The cello cuts out to the light notes of the oboe, dancing and twirling in the air. The sound is light, airy. Uplifting.

"Your laugh."

"Viktor-" Yuuri tries, because he can't focus now. This is just…

The sound of a piano comes next, thick in the air. Each note bears heavy weight, sinking into his chest, crippling and tragic in its beauty.

"The gravity of your tears."

Viktor keeps going. Each button he presses is a new sound, a new essence of how Yuuri is translated through Viktor's musical fingertips. The flutter of his lashes. His racing pulse. His dedicated steps on the floorboards. His breath as he sleeps. The swish of his bangs. The warmth of his heart.

All of it wells into Yuuri's eyelids until he's blinking back emotion. He's given up on trying to disturb Viktor now.

There's an intense plucking of violins and violas. A mash of out of tune noise that frenzies in dissonance.

"Your scrambled thoughts."

An organ booms over the room in an explosion of sound. It shakes and disturbs him down to the floor of his gut. Yuuri swallows against the familiarity of the sensation.

"Your anxiety."

The last is a woman's voice. It's a deep bellow, strong and sturdy. Wordless, but no less impacting. A foundation to stand on when there's nowhere else to turn.

"Your courage."

By the time Viktor has finished the list, Yuuri's forgotten how to breathe. Again. "This… this is all of me? This is what you think of me?"

"This is what you are!" Viktor insists, gaze howling its obviousness. He acts as if he's given Yuuri a mirror and he's rejecting his own reflection. "This is you." Viktor presses one last button and all of the sounds become one. Each instrument is played carefully, the music flowing with Viktor's lifeblood, tuned into an overwhelming song that Yuuri's body doesn't know what to do with. There are so many emotions. The song fluctuates to accommodate the changes, the feelings. It's a seamless string of sound, telling a story of the trials and wonders of a singular being. _Himself_. It breaks him. It caresses him. It livens him.

It speaks words Yuuri could never translate.

"Please, Yuuri." Viktor's pleading eyes focus on him now, and Yuuri realizes that _this_ is the song. Viktor wants him to dance to this. How is he supposed to express all that this song is with his measly body?

"But… But what am I supposed to dance? I don't even-"

"Whatever you wish."

"Choreograph my own piece?" His whisper echoes, and he feels like he's being mocked by acoustics. He can't. He's no stranger to shaping Viktor's music into an accompanying story with his body, but not this. Not something this important. Not something that he would have to perform with _Viktor's_ _name_ on the line.

Not something about himself.

"You must have lost your mind."

Viktor's beside him before his panic sparks free. "I'll help you." His hand's a guide on his, enveloping, strengthening. "And I know a woman who, with the right amount of begging, can lead your steps to great heights."

"But I-"

"Mostly, I just want you to dance, Yuuri. Dance with all of your soul. Dance not with this," his fingers stroke themselves into Yuuri's temples only to fall and press into his chest, "but this."

Viktor's hand loiters there, until he can feel the man's pulse, turbulent against his own. Yuuri reaches up and presses his own hand against Viktor's. They're melding. Slowly coming together. The fear is undercut by exhilaration.

"Let the pulse of my music sing through your body once more."

"You're not giving me much of a choice here, are you?" Yuuri can't believe that he's smiling. In the face of such a daunting, harrowing task, he's smiling.

"Is that a yes?"

"Play it again."

Yuuri listens, again and again. Every replay sharpens the images in his mind. The movements. The story. It eases Yuuri into the idea that he can actually do this. As just over an hour passes, Yuuri's ready to give it a shot.

He stretches and moves the surrounding furniture back before coming back to Viktor and giving his hand a squeeze. "I'm ready. Play it again."

Viktor does with a curious and eager gaze.

Yuuri lets his hold on Viktor go. He breathes in.

Yuuri unleashes himself upon the score. He does what comes naturally.

He dances.

It's freeing. He finds himself within the notes, breaking out of the confines he's recently wound around himself. He gives it everything he's got in the cramped space of the studio. Nothing stops him.

The world around him loses meaning. It's just him and Viktor's music.

It's easier, when he just lets himself go. His body flows with the sound, spirit soaring with the thought that this is Viktor's music. He remembers all those times that he listened to his pieces. Crying to sorrowful melodies on his most trying days. Unraveling to a particularly emotionally charged song as he breathed through his panic attacks. Viktor's music has always resurrected him up from the depths, and now the man has done it again. With this song. Made for Yuuri, and only Yuuri, to dance to.

His body moves into an impassioned allegro as the music swells and crescendos. The chorus ruminates with the beat of Yuuri's heart. Viktor's presence is ingrained in every beat. The music may be about him, but Yuuri feels Viktor in every note. It's almost like he's dancing right beside him.

The song ends. Breaths thunder in and out of him. His skin is radiating July sunshine and growing sweat-sour. He's barely stopped moving and his mind is already running over how he can make it better. He messed up a few moves. The whole of the choreography still needs much work and careful tweaking. It's nowhere near professional. But he can feel the prideful gleam on his face.

He feels invincible.

Viktor's crying, sitting in his chair at his mixing desk, staring with a hand cupped over his mouth. "Perfect, Yuuri. It's perf-"

Yuuri clashes their mouths together, a hard smash that wars their lips and teeth and tongues. Yuuri packs a surge of life into the kiss and settles himself upon Viktor's lap as it gentles into nips, then deepens into a hazy bliss. Viktor clutches onto his thighs, pulling his weight into him as they move across the room to the lone couch.

Yuuri's settled there, beneath Viktor, feeling along newly exposed skin as they bleed into each other, new stitches stretching across new tears. He's stripped with Viktor undressing him slowly, like he's a present and even the wrapping is precious. Shivering in the early December chill, Yuuri heaves a generous, extravagant moan as Viktor heats him, tongue lapping at his hip bones, pads gliding along the juncture of his knee. Viktor already knows so much about his body, playing him with the same expert adeptness he uses with every instrument. A press against his inner thigh _just so_ raises Yuuri's voice an octave, wrecking every critical point of his foundation. Viktor smirks, producing a needing that drips from Yuuri's uvula.

Yuuri pulls him down, insistent hands yanking glowing strands. Yuuri's tongue sticks on winter-torn lips as he sucks in a gulp of Viktor's pleasure. The kiss is a burn that explodes his bones. He goes limp with the rock and shift of their movements, floating along with the natural ebb. Viktor's a goner right along with him, a repeat of _Yuuri, Yuuri, Yuuri_ whispered in complete abandon.

There's something about their eyes, how their gazes must connect just as the motions heighten, just before the precipice is met. It's not something they've spoken about, never formally agreed upon, nor demanded, but it happens. Automatically. Magically. They know.

Yuuri _must_ see Viktor as he's tipping.

Viktor must need the validation, too.

The intense pleasure ends. But the gaze, the connection, remains.

Post-coital Yuuri feels disgustingly sticky, his arm peeling off the leather of the couch with a grotesque noise. Viktor, of course, looks artfully disheveled. He's dopily smiling, curled against him with his button down tossed atop them both.

There's no air between them, no space.

It's perfect.

"I'm so adding that to the piece."

Yuuri twists his ear until Viktor promises that he won't.

* * *

It's Christmas and Viktor's birthday and everything's decked out in god awful holiday cheer. The lamp's sporting a Santa sweater and the coffee table is glinting with an uncoordinated wind of blinking Christmas lights. The smell of crockpot hot chocolate thickens the air, sweet, unburnt. A fake tree is in the corner, dozens of ornaments burdening its branches as a train circles its trunk. Viktor's playing jingles on the electronic keyboard on his lap.

Viktor takes it all in with childish glee. He feels like it's his first Christmas. Really, it is, celebrated like this, with Yuuri. It might as well be his first birthday, too.

Yuuri complains that his ugly sweater itches, hands Viktor a mug of cocoa as he snuggles in beside him. Makkachin's on his other side, stuffed into her own sweater sewn with garish Christmas flare.

There's a blush of lips against his neck, a bump of affection against his nose. They're spending the day doing what Viktor wants, absolutely nothing. They spend it thinking on future promises and decades spent together. Watching Christmas specials and skyping Yuuri's family with stomachs full of nervousness.

The day quiets. Viktor watches Yuuri, the man lounging on top of his chest, profile lit through sun-damp windows. He strokes a stray hair from his cheek. "I'm really glad you decided to move here."

"I'm really glad you don't live in heaven."

Viktor snorts, skitters his fingers along Yuuri's side as Yuuri belts out laughter. The keyboard hits the ground, a mash of keys muffled against the carpet.

It's their last breath before things become truly hectic. The final details are filed on the concert. Tour dates are already prepped. Advanced tickets already sold. Viktor will be Yakov's slave to every grand design and financial benefit. Yuuri's feet and fingers already bleed from the pressure of constant practice alongside his studies. But they delight in their arts.

Now woven together.

"You're staring," Yuuri breathes out, huffing after he's finished his piece on stage during practice.

 _I'm not the only one_ , Viktor notices, a surge of possessiveness cramping his chest. But with a performance like that, he doesn't think a person on this planet can resist staring at Yuuri.

"I'm sightseeing." Viktor loves the little giggle this earns him. "I think I found the eighth wonder of the world."

"You're so corny." Yuuri blushes around his water bottle, but he's hiding a grin. They're both conscious of the eyes on them. Neither of them care. "If I'm a wonder, what does that make you?"

"That's easy." Viktor climbs onto the stage, clumsier than he would have liked, and steals a kiss. There's whistling from those around them, a choked gag from the first chair of the violin section. Yuuri hides against him as Viktor waves them off. He cradles Yuuri's face. The world's greatest gift in his hands. "I'm the luckiest man alive."


End file.
